


Stop Making Sense

by Polly_Lynn



Series: TARDIS-Verse [12]
Category: Castle
Genre: Angst, Books, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Music, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-22
Updated: 2014-06-22
Packaged: 2018-02-05 19:15:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1829212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Maybe it's time because she wants him to tell her again. With her heart beating and eyes wide open, she wants him to tell her again." Not episode attached, but it makes reference to Knockout, Rise, Pandora, Linchpin, and the Nikki Heat books. It's probably after The Blue Butterfly, but before 47 Seconds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stop Making Sense

**Author's Note:**

> Fourteenth TARDIS-verse story. Not sure why a year later the acknowledgments to _Heat Rises_ started troubling me, but there you have it.

The book is in her hand and she wonders how many times this makes. How many times she's slid a fraction of it out from in between the others only to push it back home again because it hurts. It _hurts._ She wonders how many times she's felt the weight of it in her palm. How many times it must be, given that she knows the exact feel of a spine settling along the terrain of her fingers, top to bottom. She knows it exactly.

She opens to the first chapter and the truth settles on her. Presses her back into the couch and swings her feet up. It's time. It's time now, though she's not sure why.

Maybe because she needs to hear his version of it, and this is a start. Because she misses his words. Because the last year has stolen so much from her and she'll be damned if it takes this, too. His words. Their story.

Maybe it's time because she wants him to tell her again. With her heart beating and eyes wide open, she wants him to tell her again. Because she's desperate for it. Because she hates the very _idea_ of Sophia Turner and Clara Strike and anyone before or after her. Because she wants to hear him say that he loves her—that he still loves her—and she can't exactly ask. She can't just ask.

It's time. Now and not before. She's made a dozen starts on it before this. A _dozen_ dozen if she counts all the times she never made it past the dedication. Past the harsh white expanse of the title page. Past the single point of ink where his pen fell for an instant before he turned her away.

Before he looked up. Looked past her with a fierce, lying smile to the next person and the next and the next. Hurt and anger sheeting off him in such waves that it surprised her every time to hear their stuttering, starry-eyed thanks. To realize that not one of them had any idea there was anything behind the smile and the charming, direct-from-factory banter.

Then it stopped surprising her. Then it was familiar. Then it pulled her down and down. Air and blood and everything vital gone from the heart of her.

Because she's been on that end of it over the years. Sudden collisions with the blank, glossy exterior of him. Cool and impenetrable and no way inside any more. Nothing but this other man in the place where he had been a moment ago. Where he ought to be, nothing but brittle, quick-tongued appeal. Funny and sharp and all hard surfaces. No trace of her friend. Her partner. What she's looking for. What she's probably been looking for as long as she's known him.

She doesn't know how long that's been. How long she can say that she's known him and that's . . . well, it's not all her fault. He leads with it. With the image. And it's enough for him. Enough to have people know him that way. Some people. He's good at acquaintances. At skimming along the surface of people's lives and inviting them to do the same.

But that's never been enough for either of them where the other is concerned. They've always wanted more of each other. More from each other. And they'll keep on wanting. She will. She hopes he will. _God,_ she hopes. And she doesn't know when that started.

She knows him, but she doesn't know where to mark the beginning of that—of everything beyond just knowing him—and more of it is her fault than she's been willing to admit until recently. Now, every day it feels like more and more of the weight of it falls on her.

In the beginning it was easier to see nothing but the outside. To ignore those moments where a word or a gesture or a merciful instant of silence struck the surface of her and rang out. Rippled through every part of her and resolved into something lovely. In her. In him. Between them.

It was easier to blink when he blinked, suddenly nervous that he'd given too much away. Easier to reset the stage and take the raunchy joke or salacious comment as the real heart of the moment.

And then it was easier to be disappointed. To tell herself _I told you so_ when he reverted to type. To never wonder why. Why that particular moment? It was easier not to notice this. _This_. The way there can be two of him at any given moment.

The way there were two of him the day she set the book down in front of him and asked him to make it out to Kate. Two of him. The one she'd broken and the one no one would ever get close enough break. The one freezing her out with cold, clipped sentences. The one looking up at her through his lashes, begging for some hope. For just a little bit of hope.

There are two of him here. In the book, there are two of him, and not entirely because of her. Not all of it. There are two of him because of everything. Because of Montgomery and years and years of lies. And in more complicated ways because of Gina and Josh and two kisses in a dirty alley.

Because they walked right up to the line that day. Before the hangar. They walked right up to it. His fear and her anger and they looked each other in the eye and flinched. Because he has to wonder—he must want to know—how it all would have played out if he'd told her he loved her then. She wonders. She wants to know. And she doesn't want to know. She already knows it wouldn't have made any difference.

There are two of him because she left. She left him. Because staying was never an option then. However much she wishes she could have spared both of them that day. Those weeks and months. However much she wishes she could take it back and never have to confront that other version of him, staying was never an option.

She's started the book a dozen different times and now she's tearing through it. Because it's time. The pages fly under her fingers and she's hungry for it. The next sentence. The next chapter. To know how it turns out.

She's tearing through it. A shot rings out, and she stops.

She slams the hard cover shut, and she's on her feet. She's nearly out the door, the book clutched tight— _tight_ —between her fingers. She's nearly out the door when she realizes she's not dressed for anywhere beyond her own living room. That it's the middle of the night. That she can't show up on his doorstep and demand to know what the hell he thought he was doing shooting Rook like that.

When she realizes that the impulse is absurd, considering everything. Considering everything.

She looks down and lets it fall open to the bookmark. There's more. A chapter at least, and none of it's sewn up, and she doesn't know how he thinks that Nikki can do it alone. How Nikki can do anything at all under the circumstances. He thinks too much of her. Or too little. Too little if he thinks she could just go on. If he thinks she'd ever be the same.

She slides to the floor. Right there in the hallway she slides to the floor and rests the spine along one thigh.

She opens to the bookmark and reads.

* * *

Some nights he thinks he'll never sleep again. Some days, too. When he's exhausted. When his body pleads with him, he'll give in. Whenever it is, wherever he can, he'll tuck himself away. Somewhere dark and quiet, but he always knows. He'll never sleep again.

He's used to the feeling and he's not. It's the way he is. His life. It's the nature of insomnia—the fantasy that the clock going quiet, a single glimmer of light sputtering out and giving way to darkness would make the difference. That one small thing might bring on blissful unconsciousness. And the bone-deep certainty that nothing— _nothing_ —will make any difference at all and he'll never sleep again.

But it's not _just_ the nature of insomnia. It's them. It's the nature of _this._ Whatever this is between them. It's not knowing.

Some nights it's the anticipation. His stomach teetering on the giddy edge of something she said or didn't say and he waits for her. He paces and frets. Writes sometimes. Sometimes it's an incredible antidote for writer's block and he can't get things down fast enough. And sometimes he has absolutely no attention span and his hands shake and he has to be moving. However it plays out, he waits for her.

Some nights it's . . . unpleasant. Dread. Hopelessness. The frustration of being so close and never getting any nearer. Of steps they take together. Inching forward and falling back. It's secrets weighing him down. Weighing her down. Because he's seen the way she lights up and then goes dark. The way she reaches out for him, helpless—at least as helpless as he is—and then pulls up short. Like she's afraid.

Like she knows. He thinks she does know. He thinks she remembers. And he has no idea what it means. He doesn't know what it means that even in the middle of the night—with all the dangerous things they talk about and the way they keeping pushing closer and closer to the light of day—they don't talk about it. Not even in circles and riddles and subtext. They've never stumbled anywhere near. Three words and her name and her eyes slipping shut and what if . . . _what if?_

He waits for her those nights, too, and he tries not to wonder why.

Some nights he sleeps. Deep and dreamless or filled with her. Good and bad and holding the line. Some nights he sleeps, and he never knows which way it will go. It's out of his control. Like so much of this—like all of it—it's out of his control.

Tonight is rare. Tonight he hovers somewhere in between. He's been up and down and over every bit of the landscape. Over and over and over every bit of whatever this is and he's drifting now. Not sleeping, exactly, but resting. The feeling of potential washes through him and he's heavy with it. Limbs and skin and nerve endings hunkered down and heavy with it. Waiting just because. Waiting.

It's not a bad night. It's almost pleasant. In the back of his mind, he knows he's tired—so tired—but it's almost pleasant to fall dead center like this.

It's been a rough start to the year. Highs and lows and everything trying to break them. _Everything._ The job and the different things it means for each of them. The past. His and hers. Who they used to be and who they aren't yet.

But it hasn't. It hasn't broken them and the fact of that brings his teeth together in a fierce grin and squares his shoulders. It makes him proud. Determined.

It makes him hopeful if he's not careful. And he has to be careful with that.

It's there. Hope. It's always there. In the worst moments and the best. In moments like this when he's as close to being at rest as he gets nowadays.

It's always there. It settles into every part of him and pulls him along. He's glad enough to go, but he has to be careful.

 _Hope._ It's burned him before.

* * *

She's read it a hundred times now. A single sentence. Not even that. Nine words buried at the back. In the acknowledgments. Walled up behind her title. Behind her full name and the thanks everyone expects. Nine words that they must wonder about. Everyone must wonder about them. Nine words that only she would understand. _Not to mention how to make sense of songs._

She's read them a hundred times and more now. She's long since lost count. She's read them again and again and they burn through her. Every single time they lick through her like a flame. Out from her pounding heart and down through her belly and her toes and fingers tingle with it.

He loves her. He still loves her and it's been here all along. Waiting. Just waiting.

She's back on the floor. Who knows how long she's been there. Time doesn't seem to mean anything right now, but she's on the floor.

It's better than the alternative. She was out the door again. Still not dressed and whether or not time means anything to her right now, she knows it's later than late. She was out the door with no idea what she'd say if he answered. If she'd gone to him and he had let her in, she had no idea at all what she might say.

So she's back on the floor and the book is closed now. It's heavy in her lap. The bare cover, the unbroken white of the title page—that single point of ink—they make it heavier still. It hurts that there's no inscription. That he never made it hers. That she never asked after that first day, and he never brought it up, and it's been _months_. Months on top of months and what must he think?

The thought has her on her feet again. It has the book tumbling from her lap as she lurches for her bedroom. As she gropes for clothes and her phone and some way to fix this, because what must he _think_?

She's frantic and clumsy with it. The words run through her mind, over and over, and she has no idea how he does it. How he's done it all this time.

He suspects. She thinks he's probably suspected since that day in the hospital. Every time it's come up since then. Her supposed amnesia. Every time she's lied to him, she thinks he's must have known.

And even if he hadn't, this. _This._

And every morning he shows up. He shows up with coffee and a smile and stillness. A strange word to hang on him, but it fits. He has this still, patient will to place himself at her side and stay there. When she's cryptic. When she's needy. When she's pushing him away and he retreats just a little and holds his ground. Still and determined and hopeful and what must he have _thought_ with every single day going by and not a word from her? Not a word.

She pulls on clothes. Struggles into jeans and fumbles at half a dozen mismatched socks before deciding she doesn't care. She pulls them on. Pink and green and she doesn't care.

She dives into a pile of blouses and shirts and sweaters, desperate to find something clean that doesn't have buttons. Her shaking hands aren't up to it. They barely managed her jeans, and she needs her hands to work.

Because she can't show up on his doorstep, but he'll come to her. He'll come to her if she asks.

It starts to unfold in her mind then. How it will go. How much she'll say and how much she won't and how he'll look. The way he'll try to read between the lines and the way that will break her heart. And his. Mechanical things snap into place, too. Where she'll sit and why. Where exactly to do this. How to control it. It starts to unfold, but she stops. She stops.

She closes her eyes and clears her mind. She doesn't want to know. She doesn't want to plan and calculate. She doesn't want to let the blind panic in.

She doesn't want to talk herself out of it.

He'll come if she asks, and there should be music. That's it.

She stoops in the hallway and retrieves the book. An afterthought but not really. Something she owes him that's overdue. Long overdue.

She grabs a shoulder bag and slips the book in. She takes a breath and stares down the door. It's never looked so heavy and she falters. She can't do this. After all this time, she doesn't know how to do this.

_Not to mention how to make sense of songs._

Her forehead falls against it. Cool, rough metal meeting skin and bone. She doesn't know how to do this, but she owes it to him.

She makes her hands work. With slow, deliberate fingers and no small measure of stubborn will, she fights them back. Raw nerves. She fights them back.

_Time out._

* * *

He won't sleep. He supposes he should give up on it before the tide turns one way or the other.

He fights the heaviness of his limbs. Works his fingers and toes and reintroduces pieces of himself to waking life. His feet find the floor, willing and steady. Not restless, not particularly weary, and he's relieved.

He pauses a moment by his desk, but he passes the laptop by. The light is too much. His mind starts to amp up at the thought of it. All that light. Wheels start to turn and he wants the stillness. As much as he can have tonight, he wants the stillness.

He grabs the first book at hand and flips to the middle. The letters snap into focus and his mind latches on to the sense of things. He finds the rhythm of the words. It's satisfying in a peculiar way. His mind is in low gear and he's awake enough to read for pleasure. It's not easy  to come by for him, that loose, transient enjoyment of someone else's words.

It has the pull of a rare opportunity. He'd like to take advantage, but nothing much appeals. He picks up half a dozen things and puts them down again.

He moves from the desk to the armchair to the couch. Nothing is quite comfortable and he takes up a familiar post by the windows, eventually.

He's not restless, exactly. Just unsettled. He's waiting. The thought drops in and he braces. Steels himself against the moment when the switch flips and he's anxious or desperate, but it doesn't come. He's just waiting.

His breath gathers on the window. A delicate oval. A blank page. One finger rises to the challenge. A bold stroke and another. A letter and another and another breath and a new canvas. He watches at one degree of remove as they appear and disappear. Words and phrases and scenes taking shape.

His body turns away from the window and it's still like he's watching. Detached and curious as his hands root for pen and paper and come away from the desk satisfied. Satisfied with what's in hand, but another circuit of the room turns up nowhere he wants to sit. He sinks to the floor without thinking, his back against the cool brick, and the words come.

He doesn't do this often, though he tells himself he should. He knows it's a good habit to be in, but any more it feels like there's no time for it. No time to let his hand move across the page without purpose. To let thoughts and ideas and scenes from the fringes of his mind flow down his arm to take shape. To make something physical. Something he has to account for in one way or another. Something not so easy to do away with at the press of a button.

The words come and it's still like he's watching. Some tug at his breath, pulling it in faster and faster as he climbs the side of something. An idea he's only ever seen out of the corner of his eye. Elusive for so long and now there it is. There it is right on the page.

Others leave him shaking his head. Stale things. Phrases that he suddenly realizes he uses too much. But he shakes those out, too. Clears them and makes way for something new. The pages pile up around him.

A clean one now. A fresh empty page, and he doesn't know what he's writing. There's a freedom in it. Clear single notes ringing out and dying away. Connected and unconnected. Lingering at the edges alone until the others come to him. Stepping stones between them and it's a landscape. A place for the story to live.

He turns the pages now. Leaves them in place instead of casting them aside to join the sea around him, and soon it's a little family he's kept together. A little world. Characters and events and moments of change and they all belong there. Between the lines, propped up on his thigh in whatever moment this is. They belong.

His hand moves more carefully now. The pen hesitates and an empty place opens up inside him. He's near the end of it. Whatever it is, he's near the end and he always feels this way. Relieved and at a loss as he fills in the ending.

He flips back to the first page. He brushes aside the casualties and smooths the first of the pages he kept—the first in this new world—and he reads. He just reads, and that's curious all on its own. That he's setting the pen aside and just taking the words back in. Seeing what he has the way a stranger might without crafting or polishing or worrying it all to death.

And he likes it. He doesn't know exactly what it is at first, but he likes it. It's funny and sincere. Sentimental in a way he hasn't written in years. In _years_. And it draws him in, though there's a critical voice. A distant, annoying thing that asks what it _is_. What he can do with it, but it's faint. Mercifully faint, though he curls his arm around the pages protectively. Gathers them to himself and guards everything they hold.

He reads through to the end and starts over again and again a third time. What is it he wonders? It's about her. About them. Everything is. Everything for going on four years is. But what is it? He asks himself, but the question exists somewhere else. Not here where these words belong.

He starts over again. A fifth time? He doesn't know anymore. He comes to the end and smiles. He knows what it is, though not what he can do with it. That doesn't seem to matter as much. He knows what it is: A love letter. They all are, but this is new. A new kind of love letter and he's happy with it. It makes him happy.

A chime rings out and he startles. The sea of castoffs around him rustles and the things that belong jump and settle back close to him. His phone. He forgot he brought it with him from the bedroom. Probably didn't realize it in the first place. It's his phone and it's her and he realizes that he knew all along that he was waiting for this. For her.

He barely scans the message. He doesn't need to. It makes him happy, too, though. It makes him happy to send it back to her. He places each letter and sends it off.

_Time out._

* * *

He doesn't keep her waiting. She's not even down the back stairs when her phone flares to life. Him, of course. Responding in kind: _Time out_.

She swallows hard against it. That tiny speck of doubt that she has every time. Sometimes not so tiny, but there every time. Every time. She swallows against it and some of her settles. More of her than she realizes, maybe, because the address is sent before she has time to second guess it.

 _Him and her and music, that's all,_ she reminds herself. And anyway it's done. And it'll make him smile, if nothing else. It will make him smile and wonder how she knows about it, and that's something.

It's something and that pulls her through the door when she gets there and it seems like the worst possible idea. It's 2 AM on a late winter Wednesday and the handful of loud, drunk, loose-collared clones in knots around the pool table gives her pause. They call out to her. Scattered pick-up lines and half-formed cat calls. She almost turns right around, but the bartender gives her a desperate look. She stands in the doorway a minute, but it's that desperate look and Kitty Wells on the jukebox that usher her in. This is how it should be.

The bartender nods his thanks and waves aside the money she sets next to the pint glass. She thinks about arguing and decides she doesn't have the energy for it. That she needs it for whatever will or won't happen here tonight.

She's about to ask, but he's already gesturing. There's a table off to the side. Close to the window and half hidden behind a pole. The six or seven loudmouths have forgotten about her already, but it can't hurt to have a safe haven. She leaves behind a generous tip and raises her glass to him as she settles on to a stool at the high top.

She sips her beer and waits. It's loud in the bar. Sloppy conversations and neon crackling and the air is charged. The minutes feel long and she's trying not to do the math. She's trying not speculate how soon he could possibly be there. How long after that he might be there and what each additional minute might mean he's thinking. If each minute stands for his patience slipping away.

She's trying not to do any of that. And then she finds that she's not. She doesn't have to work at it. She's just . . . not. The jukebox fades out and builds back up again. Kitty and Tanya and George and Hank. All of them like old friends she hasn't seen in a while. She finds one foot tapping the leg of the table and she's singing along under her breath. Her elbows feel at home and the beer is bitter and satisfying on her tongue and she's just not doing the math.

She sees him through the window first. Sees his face framed in the hot pink loop of a neon letter hanging in the window and there's something different about him. He's moving—quick and confident and eager.

He stops for a moment and squares his shoulders to the front of the place. He looks things up and down. His eyebrows draw together one minute and he smiles broadly the next. She realizes it's not something different. It's something familiar from a while ago. From a long while ago and her pulse trips along faster.

He disappears then, and she turns in her seat. She leans out from behind the pole to wave him over, but he's already heading right for her, sure of where she is from the minute he walks through the door.

Her spine straightens in surprise when he's right there in front of her. When he steadies one hand on her shoulder and stoops to kiss her cheek. When he rumbles a warm, low, _Hi_ in her ear and grins at the way her mouth opens and closes.

* * *

He slides the beers across the table. One for him and another for her, even though she still has a few healthy swallows left in her first. He takes the stool to her right. Next to her, not across. He doesn't look to her for approval. He just clambers up and they're talking. Bumping knees and nudging shoulders and clinking glasses.

He's awake. Buzzing and present. Nothing tentative about him tonight. It would be swagger on another man. Something she'd hate. Something she'd want to knock down, but there's too much little boy in him. Too much of that thing in him that she warmed to instantly all those years ago. Years ago when she stumbled over her own name with his book clutched against her chest. When he stepped outside himself and shared a smile and a quiet moment and he didn't have to. The first time she knew there were two of him.

There's only one of him tonight. He's just here with her. Just one of him, though not a version she gets to see often. Not one she's seen in a while.

She remembers what it felt like back there on her hall floor. Terrible sureness burning through her. That he loves her. That they can't go on forever like this. They can't go on with him loving her and neither of them saying anything. She remembers every miserable sensation, but it's like they've locked it away for now. Like it's behind glass and she's safe from it as long as he's with her tonight.

His hands are moving over the table top and he's telling her about writing. Like he's just discovered pen and paper and words on his tongue. He moves things around. His beer. Hers. The condiments and the napkin holder and her hands. He takes her hands in his and makes each of her fingertips a landmark. Turns them into touchstones in the world that he's just made. That he's still getting to know.

She loves this. The way he brings her along. The way he gives them back time they've lost. Time they never had because she was already broken when they met, and so was he in his own ways. But this is the man Kyra must have known, and she loves this chance to spend time with him. She loves _him_ , and that almost comes spilling out.

He senses it. Or maybe she says something. Maybe not. Maybe he can just see the words hovering on her lips. _I love you. I love you. I love you, Castle. I love you, too._

He stops. Blushes like he's been caught. And then he recovers. Hits his stride again and there's a little swagger now. A little bravado, but she loves him for it.

"What?" He's looking her in the eye and looking away doesn't seem to be an option.

"Nothing," she says, and she doesn't look away. It's not an option. "I just . . . like this." She raises one palm and gestures at the bar. The music. The middle of the night. "I like this." She leans in and breathes it in his ear. Rests her forehead against his cheek.

"Me too." He lets out a soft, surprised laugh, warm and sweet across her face. He hesitates then, and she starts to pull away, but his fingers are tangled in her hair and he holds her fast. "I was waiting."

"I know, Castle. . . ." Her voice wavers and he pushes back immediately. For a terrible instant it's like the glass is breaking. Like the glass around everything that's still wrong with her is breaking.

But he's only pushing back to kiss her. Just once on the lips. On one cheek, then the other.

"No," he says each time. Punctuation. Emphasis. "No. No."

"No?"

"No. We like this. I was waiting and now—right now—I'm not. We like this. So none of that . . . serious face. Serious voice. None of that." He lets her go and hides a smile in his glass. "Just pathetic country songs and beer."

"Pathetic?" She raises her eyebrows in mock offense. "You did _not_ just call Ms. Loretta Lynn pathetic."

"Is that who this is?" He cocks his head and listens.

Her mouth drops open. She can't believe he doesn't know Loretta Lynn, and he can't believe she does. And they're off. She gives him chapter and verse on every song they've heard since he walked in. He pits her against the Shazam app until they're laughing and arguing and wrestling over his phone when he questions her expertise.

She tells him about it. The fact that it's her dad who schooled her in heartbreak country music, and he laughs. He just can't picture it. He just can't picture her quiet, buttoned-up father belting out George Jones, but she swears it's true.

"He loves it," she says, but that's not quite true. She corrects herself. "He loved it."

He watches her a minute and she sees it. He's working something out. He's most of the way there and trying to decide what to do with it. She sees where this is going. Where it can go and she holds her breath.

"Not anymore?" He waits and she sees another piece drop in. He presses his lips together like he always does when he thinks he shouldn't say something. When he's about to say it anyway. But shakes himself and waits. Quiet isn't easy for him and she takes it for the gift it is here and now.

She jumps in. "Not any more. Not since my mom. I don't think . . . I think he just packed them all away. All those records. I think it was too much."

He nods. Stays quiet again and waits to see if there's more she wants to say.

There is. She doesn't know it until the words are out there. Until her palms are planted flat on the table and she's looking right at him and the words are out there. "The songs didn't stop making sense just because she was gone. They don't just stop making sense."

His lips part. A silent _O._ He's still. Perfectly still.

It's Patsy Cline on the jukebox now. A heartbreak number, of course, and she wonders a hundred things at once. When the bar got so quiet. Whether he'll say anything. Whether she will. If she _could_ say anything, even if she wanted to. How long they've been staring at each other and how much longer it can possibly go on.

He swallows. His mouth twitches and she wants to kiss it. More than usual.

"Kate?" He doesn't take his eyes off her and his low, even tone is completely at odds the pulse she can see jumping just inside his collar. Just under the skin.

"Hmmm?" She doesn't take her eyes off him, either. Not this late in the game.

"What were you doing?" There's a smile flickering around the edges. "Before?"

Her fingers travel under the table and come to rest on the sharp corner of the book where it strains against the fabric of her bag. She keeps her eyes on him as she folds back the flap and slips it out into her lap.

It's winning now, his smile, and she wonders why she's not kissing him. Why he's not kissing her. But the heavy weight across her thighs is a reminder. _This first_.

She hefts it in one palm. Feels a sharp, familiar pain one last time as the spine settles along the base of her fingers. Top to bottom. She lifts it. Carefully. Reverently. She sets it on the table and pushes it toward him. "Reading."

He looks down now and she thinks she sees it in him, too. That flash of pain. His finger finds the lone point his pen touched and a little of the light goes out of him. She smooths her palm over the back of his hand.

"Kate," she says quietly, then stronger. Stronger. "You can make it out to Kate."

She lays her pen in front of him and he takes it up. He closes his fist around it. They both pretend like his hands aren't shaking. Like hers aren't.

"Kate," he repeats. He opens the cover and turns to the dedication. He rests his hand over the words a moment and looks up at her.

"It's right, Castle." She brushes her fingers over his briefly. "It's right."

He nods and flips back to the title page. His eyes flick up to hers and the look he gives her steals her breath. And his hand is moving across the page, bold and sure. It's not shaking anymore.

_To Kate. Love . . ._

  



End file.
